


The Old Roads Alphabet

by aithne



Series: Old Roads: The Codicils [8]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Family, Flash Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 15,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aithne/pseuds/aithne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-six flash stories about Kathil Amell and her family, both before and after the Blight. AU, part of the Old Roads series. Some Fade Bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is for Aftermath

Kathil wakes, after the Archdemon.

It's quiet, wherever she is. She opens her eyes and looks at the ceiling, sees beams and planks and shadows, and for a moment or three doesn't remember a thing.

Then something _moves_ inside her head and her stomach does a backflip and when she next comes back to herself there's a horrible metallic taste in her mouth and someone is trying to get her to drink something. "Just a little," coaxes the voice, and she thinks _accent_ and _Antivan_ and of course it's Zevran, who else would it be?

She drinks a little and the world goes away for a while.

When she wakes again, Alistair is there, sitting on a chair next to her bed, and her head is clearer. "How long?" she asks in a voice more croak than anything else.

He reaches out to brush her hair back from her forehead, and she flinches back from the familiar gesture. "Three weeks," he says. "Give or take. You ask that every time you wake up." He takes a long breath. "I'm trying to put off the…coronation. I'd like you to be there."

There's an uncomfortable fullness in the back of her head. It shifts with a sound like scale on scale. She can feel rage coiling in her chest, but it's not hers. She looks at Alistair, thinks _coronation_ and _king_ and _he doesn't know._

Kathil pushes herself to a sitting position, and Alistair moves to the bed and wraps an arm around her. Her head swims, but she lets herself take comfort in his presence, the solidity of him.

She's going to live.

She doesn't know if the crushing disappointment belongs to her or to the thing in her head.


	2. B is for Broken

Kathil slips into the village at sunset, Lorn at her heels. There's a wolf pack about, and she doesn't feel like staying up through the night to defend the two of them from it. There's a barn on a farm at the edge of town. Barns often have haylofts, and haylofts mean sleeping warm for once.

This one doesn't, but it does have an empty stall between a mule and a cow, and she scuttles for it. _It'll do, it'll do._ She wraps herself in her blanket, setting her back against a dusty barrel, as Lorn settles down beside her with a great canine sigh. "We'll eat tomorrow," she promises him. The mule hangs its head over the stall wall and blows suspicious bubbles from its nose at the two of them.

And it's fine.

Until it's not.

She wakes with a start as Lorn growls and there's a child with a lantern staring at them, eyes saucer-sized in his thin face. She stares back. She knows what the boy sees—tangled and filthy hair that might once have been white, a tattered blanket, a ribby dog with loose skin. Her face a mud-stained blade in the lamplight. Maybe the two of them stink, too.

The _glorious_ Hero of Ferelden. An apostate, sleeping in barns, never asking permission.

The boy screams, and runs. Kathil shoves herself to her feet, Lorn doing likewise. They hitch themselves out of the barn before the boy's screaming wakes any adults. "Bad luck, old man," she mutters to Lorn as the two of them slip down the wheel-rutted road and away from the village. "Tomorrow will be better."

Except that it never is.


	3. C is for Cerys

"Mama, what's a mal—mal—mal-ef-car?" Cerys is watching Kathil avidly.

Kathil struggles to control her expression. "Where did you hear that word?"

Cerys shrugs. "Rhys said." She puts her thumb in her mouth—she mostly stopped sucking her thumb when she was three, but even now, at five, sometimes that thumb goes into her mouth when she's upset. "Said Templars kill them. Da…does Da?"

Kathil's heart tears open, just a little. There's so much they haven't told their younger children. They don't attend services, and around them the anti-mage mutterings tend to be muted, out of fear of Kathil.

_But it leaks through anyway,_ she thinks as she tries to compose her thoughts. _And they have to be prepared._

Rhys had been five when he'd come to them, the son of two apostates, and he knew things that they had worked hard to shelter the girls from. Sometimes, he liked to lord his superior knowledge over his sisters. _If they're old enough to ask the questions, they're old enough to know the answers._

She crouches down next to Cerys, and the little girl leans against her, trusting. "That's a word a lot of people use to mean a mage they don't like," she says. "Remember how we talked about some words being heavy, so heavy you have to be careful about using them?" Cerys nods. They've talked about this with words like _whore_ and _shem_ and _bastard_. "Yes, Templars kill mages the Chantry doesn't like, but your Da doesn't work for the Chantry and hasn't since before you were born. He's a Grey Warden, just like me."

Cerys considers this. "Mama hunts mages too," she says.

"I hunt mages when they've hurt people, yes." She kisses her daughter's curls. "But the world is changing, little one. Maybe someday there won't be so many mages who hurt people." _If it's easier to be a mage, maybe more of them won't have to hurt people to survive._

Cerys nods, and pops her thumb out of her mouth. "Go play with Wynne," she says, and is off like a shot, running around the tent and out of sight. Kathil sighs, and stretches. Three more days until they're within range of Kirkwall, and they can work on getting her cousin's attention.

* * *

The next night, Cerys manifests her magic for the first time and sets their tent on fire during a temper tantrum.

It changes nothing, and everything.


	4. D is for Demon

_The first rule: never deal with one that approaches you. Always be the one to make the first move._

Kathil strides forward, the waters of the Fade rising around her ankles in a curiously dry stream, like cold fog. The old road sleeps, but there is something at the crossroads, a misshapen form twined around a soulspire. Her target.

* * *

_The second rule: never ask them to do something for you, or lend you their power. Deal in knowledge alone._

She knows its name, thanks to a fragment of an old book she rescued from a peddler's wagon six months ago. It's taken her this long to find the specific crossroads it calls home.

It unwinds itself from the soulspire, giving her a flat gaze from a viperish head. Its tattered wings spread and close.

"Greetings, Enmity," she says to it.

* * *

_The third rule: never offer possession of any sort as payment. Limit payment to what can be given immediately. Avoid any payment that requires ongoing contact._

The negotiations take time. Enmity is a tricky demon to deal with; even a particle of ire threatens to send it into a sulk. But the deal is struck at last.

It will teach her the secret of enchanting glass so it can trap magic. In return—

 _Think of sad things_ , Kathil tells herself. _Drowned kittens, orphaned babies, that two-headed skeleton with the chess set._ Crying is not something she's ever been good at, and crying on _demand_ seems impossible.

Wings rustle in her mind. Then a scream. _You are alone! Alone and flightless, without mates or eggs! Alone but for me, and I will tear you from limb to limb!_

She squeezes her eyes shut, and chokes. A bit of moisture escapes her eyes, and she swipes at it with a finger and then holds it out. "Mortal sorrow," she says to Enmity. "As agreed."

* * *

_The fourth rule: never trust a demon or spirit to hold even to the letter of a contract. Agreements are flimsy things, in the Fade; do your business and then get out, and hope you are forgotten._

Kathil gasps as she returns to her body, waking curled around Lorn as usual. Her bad knee aches. "Come on, old man," she tells the mabari, and sits up. "Time to move."

Lorn flattens his ears. Do they _have_ to?

"Yes," she says. Their camp, such as it is, takes only a little while to pack up. She shoulders her pack and they walk back towards the road. False dawn turns the sky cerulean and grey as the forest birds take up their morning cacophony.

In her head, the new knowledge begins to settle in. _Worth it,_ she decides. On its own, it's a piece of worthless information. She knows, even though the demon didn't tell her, that applying this spell to unprepared glass would end up shattering the glass so violently that she'd probably be picking fragments out of her face for months.

There had been other demons. Other bargains. She knows how to prepare the glass, how to make the glass in the first place. And now she knows a thing, whole and entire, that no one has known in the mortal world since the fall of Arlathan. She can make a small device that will track down a mage using only the residue of their magic left behind by a spell. No blood needed at all.

In her head, something dark and old laughs, wings and scales rustling. Kathil's shoulders round.

She listens to the birds. Only the birds.

* * *

_The fifth rule: never make a deal lightly. Every bargain you make will come back to you at the worst possible moment. Be prepared to deal with it when it happens._

_There are_ no _exceptions to this rule._


	5. E is for Evening

Kathil surrounds herself with a fence made of stacked books behind the shelves in the enchanter section of the Tower library. She's hung magelights above her head, and is seated on a cushion with her back to the wall. This is where Zevran finds her after supper one night, when most of the Tower mages are gathered in the dining area for watered wine and congenial conversation.

He has been at the Tower for two months now, and the list of things they do not talk about grows longer by the day. Aside from some chaste cuddling, they have not even shared a bed.

She is alone, her head bent over a book. "Tch," he says, and sees her start and look up. "Your dog is quite the social butterfly, no? But you are nowhere in evidence."

She stretches out her legs, rubbing the place where the scar on her face crosses her jaw. Strange thing, that scar. He has trouble remembering what she looked like without it. "I didn't feel like making polite conversation."

Zevran gives her his very best smile. "How about some impolite conversation?"

Kathil chuckles and moves over on the pillow. He takes this as an invitation and settles down next to her, trying not to wince as the scars on his back and chest pull and twinge. He looks over at the book she has open on her lap, and raises an eyebrow. "That is not a book about Fade theory."

She gives a brittle, staccato laugh, and snaps the book closed. "It's a novel. I found it shelved with the books on healing." She glances at him and pulls her knees up to her chest. "You don't have to come keep me company. I'm all right."

Zevran reaches over, lays his fingers on her cheek gently. He keeps his voice low. "I wish you would not lie to me, little bird."

She stared at him, frozen in place, the magelights casting strange shadows on her face. Then she leans in and lays a light kiss on his lips.

He is almost— _almost_ —too surprised to remember to return her kiss. But not quite.

It seems _right_ that this should happen here, with the occasional Templar passing on the other side of the shelves, both of them lying still until the footsteps retreat. Kathil laughs into his shoulder helplessly, and he wonders how long it has been since he heard that laugh from her. _I will make her laugh that way more,_ he promises himself.

They don't even take off their clothing. That will come later. For now, he feels her bony body pressing sharply against him, and breathes in her scent like lightning. One of his hands is in her hair, the other on the small of her back, and he has wanted this for so long without being able to admit it that he wonders if he is perhaps dreaming again.

She whispers words against his lips, too low to be understood. But he understands now. Understands why he came looking for her, understands why he has stayed.


	6. F is for Faceless

Cullen settles the helmet on his head, turning it a little to get it fixed in the right position. "Get moving," Guaire says to him as he straps on his greaves. "Commander's in a mood today."

Cullen nods, shrugs his shoulders to settle his armor. Guaire turns towards the armor stand, resolutely not looking at Cullen. Cullen's voice echoes in his helmet, when he speaks. "Did Janna—"

But he stops as Guaire's shoulders tighten, and curses himself for asking. Guaire was roused in the middle of the night last night, and returned at dawn. Harrowings usually don't take so long. It's only when they have to transport a body out of the Tower that it takes six hours for a summoned Templar to return to his bed.

They don't talk about the failed Harrowings.

Cullen steps out into the curving corridor and heads towards the stairs. The helm hides his expression. There are days when it's easier to just be the armor, to let the physical strain of standing still for six hours distract him from _thoughts_.

The mages ignore him, just as they ignore the Tranquil. He watches the apprentices go by and wonders how many of them will survive their Harrowings. How many of them will eventually become abominations anyway. He shifts in place, and a little apprentice shies away from him.

Cullen shakes himself. _Don't think. Just watch._ The hours and days and months run together. _Just watch._

After the cage, after the rebellion, after the demons, he wonders how he could have watched for so long and yet not have _seen_.


	7. G is for Grief

Seven months.

It hits Kathil one morning as she shrugs into her arming coat and laces it up the sides. _Seven months, it's been._ Seven months since—

She stops. Swallows.

Then pulls the chain mantle over her head roughly, not caring that it snags on her hair. _Breathe._ Her armor resists being put on, her fingers clumsy on straps and buckles, but she manages it and grabs her sword from the rack. She heads down to indoor salle.

Extend. Parry. Thrust. Slash. _Don't think._

Form three. Form seven. Form thirty-two. Form two. The pells the still center of the universe. _Don't think._

She forces herself to move in her armor like she's dancing. Lightning crackles along her blade. _Don't think._

_Don't think don't think don't think—_

She's kneeling. Her forehead against the straw and burlap of the pells. Hand pressed on her stomach. She doesn't cry. Hasn't cried. Not since just after it happened.

She wouldn't have carried to term anyway. The Taint burns in her blood. The poison that ended her pregnancy—only the second time she'd ever been pregnant—simply hastened the inevitable.

_Would you have been a boy, or a girl? Would you have had Cullen's ginger hair, or would you have been blonde like your sister? Who would you have been, little one?_

She is dry and pitted as a sun-bleached bone, there in the salle.

After a while, she picks herself up and sheathes her sword. There's snow that needs to be shoveled, icicles that need to be knocked off the eaves before they become dangerous. Winter does not wait for grief to pass. But when she turns—

Cullen and Zevran are standing in the doorway, watching her.

She knows what's written on her face. Silently, they come towards her, hold her between them, wrap their arms around her, and she remembers. Remembers that this grief doesn't belong to her alone. Remembers that they all lost something precious, that day.

They remember, too.

It's a bright and fragile feeling that thrums in her chest. All three of them are mortal, and broken. But this is something like grace, all three of them standing under this weight.


	8. H is for Heartbeat

Zevran closes his eyes and sets his head on Cullen's chest, listening to the reassuring thumps beneath muscle and bone. He traces his fingers over Cullen's side, following the lines of muscle and scar. Cullen's gained back most of the muscle he'd lost during withdrawal. All of them are recovering.

"Nervous about tomorrow?" Cullen asks, and his voice is a low rumble in his chest.

Zevran chuckles and shifts, throwing his leg over Cullen's. The blankets are tangled and twisted beneath them, a little damp. The fire in the hearth holds away the worst of the chill of this midnight at Soldier's Peak. The whole world is silent and still, as far as Zevran can tell.

"Perhaps," he says after a moment. He raises his head to kiss the other man's jaw, in that place he likes so well just at the edge of his beard. "It is tradition, no?"

Cullen laughs and wraps both arms around Zevran. "So I hear." There's a little grin lingering on his lips, and a light in his eyes that has taken a long time in returning. "So it's my job to distract the groom from his nerves, eh?"

He smirks. "I thought that was what we had been doing, no?" One of his hands drifts downward, sliding across Cullen's stomach, teasing. (And what is he doing, getting married? Crows do not _marry_. But—this is Kathil, and Cullen, and the daughter they have all three of them made together, and he _wants_ it.)

"You say that as if we're _done_." Cullen's mouth is on his then, kissing him demandingly, and as it turns out they are very much _not_ done.

Perhaps they fall asleep together, in the wee hours of the morning. Zevran never tells Cullen that it is less the distraction that calms his nerves than the solidity of him, his heartbeat calm and steady in his chest.


	9. I is for Innocents

"People on the lee approach," Jan says to Kathil, standing in the doorway of the tiny room she uses as an office in the watchtower. "Looks like a woman with a mule cart. Thought you might want to know."

Kathil shoves her chair back. "We're not due for supplies for another week. I'll go meet her." Jan nods, and steps back; a moment later he is gone, probably back to the tower they use to keep watch on the wide valley that stretched between their ridge and the dormant volcano known as Talo's Eye. Kathil rattles down the stairs to the courtyard, wishing she'd grabbed her cloak. The air is cold, but warmer than it has been. Anywhere else, it would be nearing midsummer. Here, nights are still cold and the wind still occasionally knifing.

_Welcome to the Anderfels. Hope you like snow. And goats._

The gate was open, a woman wrapped in layers of clothing leading a scrawny mule and cart beneath it. She was familiar, though Kathil couldn't right at this moment remember her name. They'd met briefly in the market of the village thirty miles away, the closest semblance of civilization to this remote Grey Warden outpost that they'd been helping man for nearly a year. "We've met," she says as she approaches. "I don't think I've ever gotten your name."

"Hilde," the woman says, patting the mule's sweaty neck. Tied to the cart, giving them all curious looks, is a pair of nanny goats with heavy udders. In the cart, a small dark head rises from a pile of rough blankets—a boy, perhaps about five, with a pale face and pinched lips. "I'm the midwife. And I need your help, Warden." Without waiting for a response, she turns to the cart, lifting a basket up and out of it. "Rhys, come along."

Kathil shifts where she stands, and wishes that Zev and Cullen were back from patrol. "What kind of help?"

The dark-haired boy scrambles out of the cart and ducks behind Hilde, peering around her at Kathil. Hilde cradles the basket in one arm, twitching back a blanket with the other. Under it—

An infant, not more than a few days old, blinking grey-blue eyes up at Hilde.

 _Maker's Breath._ "Come inside," Kathil says. "Nils, if you'd see to the mule?" The guard nods, and Kathil leads Hilde and her charges inside.

"Their mother is—was—an apostate," Hilde says in a low voice as she settles the basket on one of the long tables in the common room. "She told me that much. Said her man had died a few months back, leaving her and the boy with nothing to do but run, and her five months gone with this little one already. She took a bad turn during the birth. The bleeding…" She sighs. "So these two have nobody."

"Why bring them to me?" Kathil watches the boy, who hovered protectively by his little sister. His bright blue eyes are grave and watchful.

Hilde tugs lightly on the scarf over her hair. "There were rumors—I didn't pay them any mind, but you always wonder, with the children of mages…" She shakes her head. "There was a goat shed. One of the goodwives saw him set it on fire with magic, while his mother was in labor. He's a mage, right enough, and they'd take the babe too, just in case." The midwife's mouth goes hard. "My sister got taken when she was seven, after Vater caught her lighting the stove with magic. They sent her body back to us two years later."

Kathil takes a breath in, looking at the boy, and understands.

In the basket, the baby begins to fuss. Hilde lifts the babe out and rocks her. The infant is nearly bald, but what hair she has is ruddy in the lantern light. "Boy's name is Rhys. Little girl here doesn't have a name yet. Brought you nanny goats and the things you'll need to supplement their milk." Hilde gives Kathil a calm, steady stare. "If you want them, that is. I have everything I know about the mother written down for you."

"The father?" Kathil asks, looking at Rhys who is peeking around Hilde's shoulder, clearly doubtful. "No chance he's still knocking around and would like his children back?"

Hilde shakes her head. "Mattie was still grieving him. Wouldn't say a thing about him other than he was an elf and that he was the best man she'd ever met. Didn't even give me a name, but at the end…" She shifts and pulls Rhys close, putting her hand over one of his ears and pressing his other ear into her side. Her voice drops low. "She talked to him, at the end. Never forget it. 'I tried, Nelacar,' she said. 'Forgive me, love, I tried.' That's a Dalish name, I think."

It was suddenly difficult to breathe. _Bright blue eyes. Little redheaded baby. Mage. Sodding Void._

"There's a home for them here," she says, willing her voice not to crack. She swallows, tries to smile at the little boy. "I've got a daughter a couple of years younger than you. And I'm a mage, too." Raising her hand, she dances a spark across her fingertips.

Rhys's eyes go round, and a brilliant smile spreads across his face. He doesn't speak, just watches, his eyes avid.

"Stay for a few days," Kathil says. "My husbands are out on patrol, and I'd like us to talk it over before we give you an answer. But I think we've got room for two more little ones."

Hilde smiles, and the baby chooses that moment to break into a loud wail, and then there are the exigencies of feeding and swaddling and diapering and settling Rhys into a niche with his sister and all of the introductions that were needed. Cerys, when she wakes from her nap to discover that there are suddenly two more children in the watchtower, is ecstatic.

Late that night, Kathil holds a drowsing baby in her arms, and leans down to kiss her peach-fuzzed brow. "Welcome home," she whispers. "Welcome home."


	10. J is for Juvenilia

Zevran finds the book at the bottom of Kathil's pack when he goes searching for a shirt of his that's gone astray. Perhaps it had made its way into Kathil's pack when they had so _very_ hastily broken camp a few days ago.

He doesn't find his shirt, but he does find a book that he's not familiar with. _One would think I have seen every possession of hers,_ he thinks as he pulls it out to look at it. It's got a tattered cover that might once have been red and has now faded to a nondescript, rather ugly brown. The binding shows signs of having been repaired a number of times by an inexpert hand.

Inside the cover, the title is written in a neat copyist's hand. _The Bann's Daughter: An Adventure Story For All Ages, Featuring Daring Escapes, Thrilling Duels, and True Love_. Underneath is written in a hand far more lopsided and unsteady, _Property of Kathil Amell. In no way Stolen from the Library._

He laughs and opens the book, flipping through the pages. The pages have seen better days, soft and tattered with age. The story seems to concern a heroine named Cerys, but what truly catches his eye is not the text of the book itself, but the notes in the margins.

 _Bad day. Fought with J. Hate him_ _so much_ _._ is written on the top of a page. On the bottom of the same page is scrawled, _Made up. My fault. Don't hate J anymore._

Other pages are dense with Kathil's handwriting between the lines of the story. The words lapse in and out of code: _10 24 14 drams of Lm for q.v. serum. Why does everyone hate me? Rat. 3 to 7 mb/a, peak eff 100 hb. Sod I hate fire days._

This is her diary, he realizes a little belatedly. When he looks a little closer, he sees faint marks in the corners of the pages that likely signify dates. They, too are in code; the reflexive secrecy of someone watched every hour of every day.

The handwriting changes from page to page, sometimes looser, sometimes tighter. She had not written her diary in order, it seemed. This was her childhood, what she'd had of one, laid out in a maze of twisted code.

He was about to flip the book closed when something caught his eye. A name.

 _King Maric Theirin._ A little drawing of a crown. _Kathil Theirin. Queen? Princess Consort? P-C Kathil Theirin. Maric + Kathil._

She's drawn little sparkles around the names.

A pale hand snatches the book from him. "That's _private_ , Zev! Maker's _Arse!_ " But Kathil's face is flaming with a blush and she looks utterly mortified as she clutches the little book to her chest, and it's all he can do not to burst out into laughter.

A chuckle escapes him. "You…had a _crush_ …on King Maric?"

She blushes even more furiously. "There was a portrait of him in the dining hall! I was _twelve_!"

Zevran looks at her, lips twitching, and he finally gives in to the laughter that is bubbling up inside of him, demanding release. He lunges forward, wraps his arms around Kathil, and she pounds a fist against his shoulder without conviction. "And what will you give me to make sure that Alistair never finds out that you had a crush on his father, little bird?"

"Sod. _You._ " But she's laughing now too, and she bites at his shoulder with sharp teeth. "You tell him," she says with a playful growl against his shirt, "and I'll tell him about the time you called me Alistair when I was going down on you."

Zevran groans. "I thought we had agreed never to speak of that."

"That was _before_." She shoots him a dirty look. "Agreed?"

He gives in with a laugh and kisses her. "Agreed," he says, and that is that.

He occasionally sees the battered book in her pack, or stashed with her shoes at the bottom of a wardrobe. True to his word, he never does tell Alistair.


	11. K is for Kinloch Hold

_What is there to say about the place that has not already been said?_

The letter begins abruptly, as if the writer had just sat down to dash off a note to someone she sees weekly. Only Alistair, King of Ferelden and owner of more titles than one can shake even a very large stick at, has not seen Kathil for four years. He hasn't heard from her in over a year.

He'd know the handwriting anywhere, though. Penmanship was never one of her strong suits.

 _If there were_ anywhere _else to move the Circle, I'd say it should have been done years ago. The Tower's not a good place, Alistair. Sometimes tragedy leaves its mark on a place, and Kinloch Hold has contained so many sorrows over so many years._

 _But Ostagar? Maker's Breath, that's a terrible idea. Do me a favor and look up the history of Ostagar before you make any plans. It was once a twin to Aeonar in the north, and you know how well_ that _place turned out._

_Don't let the Grand Cleric bully you on this one. First Enchanter Petra knows what she's about. If she says she has an alternative to the Harrowing, believe her._

_Don't make me come back to Ferelden to kick your arse, Alistair. You know I would._

— _K._

_p.s. By the time this letter gets to you, we won't be in the Anderfels any longer. The children are healthy, Zevran and Cullen are doing well. I think that about covers it. I'll write again once I know where I might be able to pick up messages._

He scowls at the letter, and then sets it down. He's been delaying doing anything about the Circle, mostly because Ostagar is far to the south and if the Qunari attack it would be three weeks instead of six days before they could muster a mage force of any significant size to defend the northern coast. It's not enough to sway the Grand Cleric, who insists that Harrowing is the only way to make sure that a mage is able to handle their magic. There are reasons—reasons he chooses not to inquire too heavily into—that Harrowings may no longer be held at Kinloch Hold.

But if he can arm himself with knowledge about Ostagar, knowledge the Grand Cleric may be quite deliberately forgetting…

There's a page sitting unobtrusively in the corner, a gangly child of fourteen, some noble's son. "Go get Archivist Haile," he says. The page jumps, his spine going straight and stuff. "Tell her that I need to see her. Now." Alistair peers at his inkwell. "And when you've fetched her, go find some more ink. The good stuff, if you please."

The page jumps up and takes off at a run. Alistair folds up the letter and puts it in a box, stashes the box in a bottom drawer of his desk.

He wonders what her help is going to cost him this time. It's never been cheap. But he thinks that it will be worth it, this time at least. The Qunari are being seen more and more frequently along Ferelden's northern coast.

The archivist arrives and he sends her off to research the history of Ostagar. Kathil's letter lies in the box with the rest, an open account that he rather hopes will never come due.


	12. L is for Lilian

Lils balances a little ball of spirit energy on her fingertips, spinning it idly. She glances over at Kathil, the set of her mouth troubled, then flicks the spirit ball over to her. Kathil catches it without thinking about it.

They're sitting on a couch in the empty bar, artificial sunlight filtering in from the open courtyard door. The place makes little sounds when it's sleeping; creaks and whispers along the walls, an imitation of a building settling that Kathil never wants to think too closely about.

Kathil doesn't ask. Lils, if she talks about what's troubling her, will do it on her own time. Kathil adds a wreath of her lightning around the spirit ball, then bounces it back.

Lils catches it. There's silence between them as they pass the magic back and forth, changing it each time it alights. Kathil frees one foot from her shoe and touches Lils' calf with her toes.

Their respective magics are intertwined at the edges, the two of them always in contact when they're both here. The contact is like sunlight on Kathil's skin, or just below it where the surface of her magic lies. Lils' magic tastes like darkness, rich and herbal, and her own magic is sharp and dusty against it.

Lils leans against her, sets her chin down on Kathil's shoulder. Kathil wraps her arm around the other woman, feeling the wiry strength of her against her own bony frame. They are wordless together, but the magic speaks for them, a constant reassurance of _I am here, I am here, I cannot speak but I am here._


	13. M is for Missive

Another letter.

Kathil stares at it in the wavering, directionless light of the Fade. This is the—sixth? Thirteenth? Twenty-third?—letter she's found in the last…however long it's been. She doesn't know any more. The world stopped when she was injured and it's never started again.

She knows, vaguely, that time ceasing to have any meaning isn't a particularly good sign. She doesn't even know where she is. Just that it's only when she's dreaming that her face and shoulder don't hurt.

And this. A letter. Alistair's handwriting.

_I don't even know if you're alive or dead, and even if I had enough pull with the Templars to get them to track you down, I suspect that would just end up pissing you off. You'd probably come back from the grave to strangle me._

It's an old, strange magic, burning letters in hopes that the smoke will carry messages to the spirits. She has no idea how Alistair's managed it. Her shoulder twinges, and before she can stop herself she reaches over with her good hand to rub at it.

Pain blooms like fire over her shoulder just as it does when she's awake, and whiteness overtakes her vision. When she opens her eyes again, she's on her knees. The letter's fallen in front of her.

Kathil reaches for it, not bothering to rise.

Shapes move at the edges of her peripheral vision. She's been found. She has a few minutes before one of them gets stupid and brave enough to attack, though.

_But I wish I'd found out before you left that you have family. Blood family, even. A living sister, in Seahold—Alfstanna, the bann of Waking Sea. Of course, if I learned anything from traveling with you it's that sisters are trouble, so maybe it's better that you don't know. I don't know. Why am I even writing this?_

_I just wish I knew if you're all right._

"No," she whispers, her voice a low croak. "No, I'm not."

One of the dark shapes rushes her and she forces herself awake, back into her body, back into the constant awareness of pain.

_I'm so tired._

She shifts in her bedroll, looks up at the branches of the tree she and Lorn are sheltered under. Mercifully, for once, the screaming in the back of her head is silent. Even a fragment of an Old God occasionally sleeps.

The foothills of the Frostbacks. That's where she is. She remembers now. Perhaps ten miles from the entrance of Orzammar.

She rolls over to burrow into Lorn's side. The mabari lifts his head and snuffles her hair. "Maybe we'll go visit some dwarves," she mumbles into his fur.

Maybe it's time for her Calling. The Deep Roads are _right there…_

_No._

Something in her refuses.

She's got a sister, somewhere in Waking Sea. Maybe. She doesn't really remember Alfstanna except for an impression of competent practicality. She doesn't even know if the letters are real. It seems like the sort of thing her mind might come up with all on its own. _Wishful thinking._

Still.

There are tears leaking from her eyes, though she feels oddly calm, almost numb. Time stutters and the sun is rising. She'll go to Orzammar. Maybe after that—

_We'll see, won't we?_

#

[note: what happened next is referred to in Dagna's section of my fic Imperfect Creature.]


	14. N is for Necessity

After the first few times, Kathil keeps her shirt on. Nobody wants to see her scarred torso. They can barely look at her face.

But they can close their eyes and let her touch them. Male, female, young, old; it doesn't matter. This is her payment for a place by the fire and a hot meal, and a bath if she's really lucky. She likes the older farmhold women the best, the ones that smell like baking bread and charcoal. They have _ideas_. They like to sit up on the kitchen table and lift their skirts and spread their knees.

The ones she likes the least are the young men. At least the older men have the courtesy to get on with their business and then leave her to herself. The young ones insist on showing off their endurance, asking her if they're the best she's ever had. She avoids the young men, when she can.

She can kill things, and she can fuck, and there's usually more demand for the latter than the former. Kathil vaguely remembers that there's coin somewhere that belongs to her, but it might as well be on the moon for all the good it does her.

She doesn't have time to remember. She's walking the old roads, chasing ancient magic, and every time she thinks about _before_ a hollow screaming echoes in her head.

She is little, and scarred, and ugly. None of these people even know she's a Grey Warden, and when she's lucky they don't realize she's a mage. She's a traveler, a drifter. Something ancient laughs inside of her.

_Get on to the next town. Don't think about it._

_Don't think. Keep moving. Keep moving._


	15. O is for Opportunistic

Kathil stares at Morrigan, her mouth suddenly gone dry.

"You… _what_?"

Morrigan twitches one brow. "Was I somehow unclear? Convince our bastard prince to lie with me tonight, so that you might both survive the morrow."

"Did you _miss_ the part where he dumped me?" Kathil asks, folding her arms. "I seem to recall _you were there_."

Morrigan sniffs. "Trivialities. Anyone can see that the young man is still utterly foolish over you."

Kathil opens her mouth, and closes it again. Words press at her breastbone, crowding her throat, burning and bright and utterly impossible. _You can't ask me to do this._

And yet, here is Morrigan. Morrigan who doesn't get along with her, who doesn't even _like_ her as far as she can tell. Asking her once again for a horrible favor.

The words that do manage to make it out come out in a small, cracked voice. "You're asking me to pressure him into sleeping with you. Into conceiving a _child_. Another bastard for the Theirin line."

"The older Grey Warden is valiant, but I doubt it will be his blade that takes the Archdemon's life. It will be yours, or Alistair's." Morrigan's voice is grimly edged. "You seem to hold this country in some regard. Would you have it lose its newly minted King? Or will you sacrifice _yourself_?"

Kathil closes her eyes, her mouth hardening. She almost feels like throwing a _yes_ into Morrigan's face, just to spite her.

They would both know it for the lie it is.

_I want to live._

She opens her eyes, meets Morrigan's sharp gaze. "I'll ask him. No promises."

"Best be convincing." Morrigan steps back, into the shadows thrown by the light from the fire. There's a flicker of expression that crosses her face, unreadable. _You're as happy about this as Alistair's going to be, aren't you?_

They understand each other. They are both mages, and both survivors. Both of them will do what is necessary.

She swallows and goes to talk Alistair into choosing survival, despite everything.


	16. P is for Palliate

_Palliate: to ease without curing_

The smells are what filter through first.

Peat smoke, animals, a lingering whiff of human musk; the acrid smell of leather being tanned and over that the sharp tang of something else—maybe herbs.

The second thing she's aware of is pain. It takes her a long series of fevered awakenings to be able to tell that it's her shoulder and face that hurt. Eventually she realizes that there's a familiar weight pressed against her hip and thigh. Lorn has stayed by her side. _Good dog,_ she tries to say, but the words won't come out and she sinks back into fever-dream.

When she wakes again, there's a dark shape hovering over her and she tries to strike out at it, only to discover that her wrist is being held down by something. "You are awake," the shape says. The voice is female, strangely accented. "Good, good. Now, to business."

The shape moves, and the woman comes into focus. Her eyes are bright in a strong-boned, lined face, and her hands are competent as she removes the bandages from Kathil's shoulder. "You are lucky," the woman says. "You are alive. You will even keep your arm."

Kathil turns her head, grimacing as the motion stretches her muscles, and looks at her shoulder. Her stomach twists, and for a moment she can't make sense of what she's seeing. Her shoulder looks like _meat_ , raw and melted and without skin. "What…" Unexpectedly, her face sings with agony, and the world goes briefly white.

"Hunters found you in the forest," the woman says. She dips a cloth in a bowl, uses it to spread a thin liquid over Kathil's shoulder. "Your dog was barking. He wouldn't let them leave without you." Kathil curls her good hand into the blanket as fire spreads where the liquid touches her wounds. "Gave you to me, to see if you'd live." The woman grimaces. "Left your arm on. Too weak to survive cutting it off."

Kathil remembers now, a little. The creature. Caustic spit. Thinking it was dead, and being wrong. "Thank you," she says, though it comes out a little strange and garbled. She tries to lift one hand to her face, and the woman catches her wrist in her hand.

"Don't touch," she says sternly. "Is bad. Lucky you weren't pretty to start with, neh?" The woman tuts and lets go of Kathil's wrist. "Hold still. Time to change bandages."

It's only later that she learns that the woman's name is Freni, that she is Wilderfolk and the leader of her little tribe. They live in cottages built on stilts ( _Floods come, wolves come, dragonlings come,_ says Freni. _Bad luck climbs no ladders_ ) and their lives are complicated and hard and full of song. Kathil stays for three months, and then slips out in the middle of the night with Lorn following her.

Her shoulder heals, but it will never be right again, never cease to trouble her. The wound on her face left her eye intact, but the scar pulls at the muscles and leaves her face slightly lopsided.

She is whole enough to go forward, to set her feet back on the old roads. That's all that matters. That's all that _can_ matter.


	17. Q is for Qunari

The Tamassran regards her with an impassive gaze. "We do not allow uncollared mages in Seheron. Not even on ships in the port."

Kathil sets her mouth in a hard line. Cullen and Zevran flank her, and Cerys is between Kathil and Cullen, clinging tightly to Cullen's hand. "The Grey Wardens—"

"Have no influence here." The kossith looks at her without even a flicker of emotion. "The collar will not harm you permanently. You could choose to have your tongue cut out instead."

"This man is my husband, and my Templar," she says, inclining her head. "He ensures the safety of those around me."

"A Basvaraad." The Tamassran's violet eyes regard Cullen with an expression that is only briefly interested. "It is not sufficient. Without the collar, he has no control. An uncollared mage is a danger to all, and if you will not be collared we will be forced to cut your tongue out, or kill you." Her tone suggests that she truly does not care which option they choose.

Kathil shifts her weight slightly, and contemplates the Tamassran in front of her—the first kossith woman she has ever met. Beyond this room there is a busy government building filled with men and women, the shortest of whom are two feet taller than her and at least twice her weight. Outside, an early autumn storm rages, wind and oddly warm rain lashing the streets.

The weather will not last, the captain of the ship had assured Cullen this morning. Just after he said that, a troop of heavily armed kossith had come and told her that their presence was required. They'd thought they would be safe if they could just keep their heads down and stay on the ship, but their arrival had been anticipated.

Kathil looks at the Tamassran's curved horns and runs the odds in her head. The three of them versus however many warriors live in Seheron. As far as she knows, they have no Templars; there are so many of them that it hardly matters.

Retreat is not an option. Nor is fighting.

She glances down at Cerys, who is openly staring at the kossith in wonder, and takes a breath.

_Surrender._

"The collar, then," she says. "And I hope that we may take leave of your _wonderful_ city sooner rather than later." She had passed a pair of collared mages on her way in; their stitched mouths and severed horns had not been nearly as frightening as their dead stares and utter stillness.

The Tamassran nods, and leaves. The four of them are left together in this small, bare room. In the silence, Kathil can almost hear the _click_ of her fate fastening around her neck.


	18. R is for Rhys

Zev pokes his head around the doorframe, peers into Kathil's small and cluttered office. "I do not suppose you have seen Rhys, little bird?"

She wipes her pen on the cloth and sets it in the stand, frowning a little. "He's not down in the salle?"

Zev shakes his head and comes fully around the doorframe, lounging back against in in that perfectly relaxed way that always means something's wrong. "He was meant to be working on archery with Acre, no? He has not been seen for a few hours." He sees her worried look, and fills in, "The girls are playing in our quarters, I was just there."

She shoves herself to her feet, rolling her shoulders and feeling clicks and pops as her joints protest having been still far too long. "Check the watchtower, Cullen should still be on his shift," she says. "I'll check the practice field."

They go together down the stairs and part ways, Zev out to the courtyard to the tower stairs, kathil down into the basement. She uses the priest-hole to get out of their small fortress, and heads to the practice field.

When she comes out of the treeline and onto the scorched earth of the field, she has her answer.

Rhys is sitting in the middle of the field, and the smell of fresh scorch betrays what he's been up to. Kathil sends a small, exasperated plea to the Maker for patience, and goes to crouch down beside her son. He fists his hands, a fall of sparks cascading from his fingers, but doesn't look at her.

She doesn't speak. With Rhys, it's best to just wait.

Rhys sits tailor-fashion, shoulders rounded, all boyish awkwardness and uncomfortable bones. He gives her a sidelong glance, his unruly mop of black hair falling to nearly obscure one eye. "Am I in trouble?" he asks, and Kathil's heart breaks just a little at the tentativeness of his voice.

"No, Rhys." She extends her hand out in front of her, flicks lightning sparks off of her fingertips idly. "I was just worried."

"I don't _like_ archery," Rhys grumbles. He flicks his fingers out too, a lazy ribbon of spirit magic unfurling from his hand. "It makes my fingers hurt. Why do I have to learn how to shoot? I'm a _mage_."

Kathil takes a long breath. "So am I," she says. "And many other things besides." She smiles a little at him. "You want to go out to hunt, you have to learn how to shoot. Magic scares off game, or so your fathers keep telling me."

Rhys sighs and leans against her. The ribbon of spirit magic twines and knots around his fingers. They stay there in silence for a few minutes, the slight breeze bringing them the scent of leaf-mold and sharp new growth. When his next question comes, it's so quiet as to be nearly inaudible. "When you go…do I have to stay here?"

The world goes still, and Rhys is looking at her with worried eyes. Some nameless emotion squeezes Kathil's chest as she looks at her son, her quiet, troubled, _wonderful_ son. He's been with them for two years, and he's still not entirely certain of his welcome.

"You're coming with us," she tells him. Then she smiles. "We don't leave family behind."

His grin is like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, joy lighting bright blue eyes, and he hugs her wordlessly. She wraps her arms around him, breathing out.

There are clouds gathering above them, a spring storm from the Donarks rolling in, the wind carrying the faint tang of the distant jungle. Kathil hugs her son, listening to the wind and a thread of song that she carries at the back of her mind constantly now. Another little boy, somewhere in Tevinter. Morrigan's son. An Old God.

She hopes beyond hope that her little family is strong enough to withstand what comes next.


	19. S is for Siblings

They're lying on their backs on the top of a rock formation, staring up at the sky. Cerys shades her eyes with her hand and points upward. "That one's a duck, see?"

"'uck!" Wynne declares, and chortles. She's cuddled between Cerys and Rhys, kicking her bare feet up. Cicadas buzz their monotone song in the thick afternoon air. _Go play,_ Mama had said. _We're in the middle of nowhere, it should be safe for you to wander._ But it was hot, and they were tired from walking all day yesterday, so they'd found a nice rock and were teaching Wynne about watching clouds.

"That one's a dragon," Rhys says, pointing. "A sleeping dragon."

"I think it looks like a teapot." Cerys fidgets with the smooth oval stone in her hand, a promise from their Da. Wynne giggles and grabs at Cerys's hand with her little fingers. "That's mine, Wynnie."

Wynne whines, and Rhys reaches over to tickle her ribs. "Leave her—"

Rhys goes suddenly, perfectly still.

After an instant Cerys feels it too, the crackling feel of magic being cast. She claps a hand over Wynne's mouth as Rhys rolls silently to his belly, peering over the side of the rock formation. Wynne's eyes widen, but she doesn't make a sound—Papa's taught them all how to be quiet as cats and small as mice when need be.

The feeling of magic gets stronger, and from below them comes a crackle, a whoosh, and someone mutters a curse in a language Cerys doesn't know. Rhys wriggles over to them, holds up two fingers. "Mages. Fighting," he whispers. "We have to get out of here."

Cerys shakes her head. "Hide," she whispers back. "Like Papa says." Rhys's hands are sparking, and she wraps her fingers around his. _He's scared._ Below them, a man screams, and Cerys squeezes her eyes shut. _I want Da._

The magic keeps going, and they huddle atop the rock, pressing Wynne between them. Then there's a woosh and Cerys's stomach twists. She buries her nose in Wynne's hair and tries not to remember the last time she felt exactly like that—

The feeling of magic dies as there's a gurgle and a crack beneath them. They lie perfectly still as the victor shuffles about, cloth rustling, again muttering in that language Cerys doesn't know. "Tevinter," Rhys whispers into her ear, and she nods shallowly. The sounds from below pause, and they hold their breaths.

 _Go away,_ Cerys thinks fiercely. _Go away, go away, go away._

 _If you don't go away I'll_ burn _you._

"Ker," Rhys hisses. " _Ker. Ow._ "

She opens her eyes and realizes that there's flame coming from her hands still wrapped around Rhys's, and struggles to control it. Rhys's eyes are wide and his face pale, and she knows she's hurting him but she can't _stop_ and Rhys can't move, can't yell no matter how much it hurts— _I want Da, I want Da!_

Cerys lets go of Rhys's hand and rolls away, trying fruitlessly to snuff her magic, and there's a muffled exclamation from below them as she does the only thing she can think to do and points her hands at the sky and lets a great gout of flame expend itself at the clouds.

And from not too far off, her magic is answered with a familiar howl.

_Fiann!_

Rhys is at the edge of the rock formation, screaming down at the strange mage in that language that Cerys doesn't know, but she's pretty sure she can guess what he's saying. Dark purple magic eddies violently around his fingers. Wynne is curled in a ball, arms wrapped around her head.

Then Fiann is there and howling and so is Lorn and the puppies and _there's_ Mama's magic and she can feel Da's smite like a heavy, painful hand as she catches the edge of it and rocks back, and then everything is still and Da's arms are around her as she sobs into his shoulder and the world is safe again.

* * *

It's a long time before she stops feeling guilty for hurting Rhys and for almost getting all three of them killed. Wynne has nightmares for several weeks running.

"You were brave," she whispers to Rhys one night after they're supposed to be asleep. Wynne is bedded down next to them in the tent's little alcove, giving tiny snores. "Bravest big brother."

Rhys takes a soft breath in, and then lets it out. "I wasn't going to let him get you two," he whispers back.

Da makes the world safe. Papa makes the bad men go away. Mama makes hurts better.

But Rhys is the one who stands shouting between his little sisters and danger, heedless of his own safety.

 _Someday I'll be big and strong enough to help you,_ she thinks drowsily as she slips into sleep. _Someday._


	20. T is for Templar

Cullen pauses at the door to the little room the children are sleeping in, and peeks inside.

Cerys, nearest the door, mutters and shifts; he feels her magic rouse briefly and then settle back to sleep. There are dark circles under her eyes, and she looks older than her ten years. Wynne is next to Cerys, one pale, thin arm flung over her sister, face hidden by the riot of her hair. Rhys is bedded down on a pallet next to the girls' bed, curled on his side. They keep on trying to convince him that, at the very least, he could have a proper bed, and even sleep in his own room, but he refuses to let his little sisters go unguarded.

Three children. Two mages, and the youngest likely to be as well.

His heart breaks a little when he thinks about how difficult their lives have already been, how likely it is that the world will have little kindness to show them when they're grown. All he can do is be there for them as long as he can manage.

Especially now.

He feels a warmth next to him, and then Zev's arm slides around his waist. " _No se puede dormir_?" Zev murmurs softly. In the dim, Cullen can see Zev flicking his eyes over the children's room, checking on them much as Cullen had, out of habit.

"No," Cullen whispers. "Then again…"

"Neither of us are. I know." Zev rests his head briefly against Cullen's shoulder; there's a tension in his body that no amount of massages can relax. "Come. The children are fine. We should try to sleep."

Cullen nods and lets Zev pull him back to the bed, the bed that's still, even three months on, too big for just the two of them. There's no small, cold presence waiting for them, no jostling as a tiny person made all of elbows tries to get comfortable between them.

They both pretend to sleep. Neither of them do.


	21. U is for Urthemiel

Over their heads, swallows whistle and dive, catching the insects that are rising with the setting of the sun. Kathil swats at something that buzzes by her face. "I think we're almost there."

The mountain rises before them, and though the crags have been worn down a bit with the Ages, they're still recognizable. Inside of her, the presence that has been her constant companion for a decade is singing with joy at finally being on its home ground once more. Kathil tries to ignore it.

Zev turns a bit; he's carrying Wynne, who is still too young to be able to walk for a whole day. She's perched on his hip, head resting on his shoulder. "I hope so! Otherwise our fine insect friends will likely reduce us to bones, no?" Cullen, next to Kathil, grumbles and slaps at his neck.

Cerys and Rhys are ranging out away from them, accompanied by their pack of Mabari. They come thundering back down the narrow path, grinning brightly. "Mama, there's a _house_ ," Cerys declares.

"And smoke coming up from the chimney," Rhys adds, scratching behind the ears of Oleander, his brindled bitch, the pup who takes the most after Fiann. "Someone's home."

Kathil, Zevran, and Cullen exchange a look. "This is the right place," Kathil says. "It's likely her. Let's go."

They arrive at the house—more of a ramshackle cottage—and Morrigan is there, standing outside the front door. Waiting for them.

"I thought I had told you not to follow," she says, and her voice is exactly like Kathil remembers, beautiful and acerbic. There are touches of white at her temples, and perhaps she is no longer the young thing she was during the Blight, but her eyes are still the same, dark and challenging. "But here you are. And such a crowd you have brought with you." She casts her sharp gaze over all of them, adults and children and Mabari. Cerys, suddenly shy, grabs Kathil's shirttail and peeks around her waist.

"We didn't have much choice," Kathil says. "You remember Zevran, of course, but this is Cullen, and our three children, Rhys, Cerys, and Wynne." Morrigan's mouth curves upward just slightly at Wynne's name. _Little do you know, Morrigan._ The dragon inside of her rustles its wings, impatient.

"Ah," says Morrigan, and carried in that syllable is a universe of meaning. "Let me present my daughter, Branwen." She looks over her shoulder. "Come out, child. We have visitors, and it would not do to be inhospitable, would it?"

Kathil only has a moment to think, _wait, didn't she tell me she'd had a son?_ before the child steps out, illuminated by the setting sun. The child's about eleven, wearing a stained and patched tunic, walking on her toes.

Long dark hair falls in tangled curls over her shoulders, her face carved from the same stone as Morrigan's. There's some of Alistair around the jaw, and in the lanky body that is already almost Morrigan's height, and the eyes—

Those _eyes_.

The clamor from the back of Kathil's head is nearly unbearable as Branwen meets her eyes, fearless as any wild thing that's never seen people. _We know one another,_ carols Urthemiel. _My self, my purest god-self, the fruit of the plans of my sister!_

Kathil swallows. Branwen stares.

"It's good to meet you," Kathil says, her voice almost a croak. "We have much to discuss."

In her head, the dragon sings and sings.


	22. V is for Vhenan

"Do you love my mama?" Rhys asks Nelacar, one day.

Nelacar blinks. "I do," he says. "She is _emma vhenan_. Why do you ask?"

Rhys is seven, and he's been with his new parents for two years, long enough to finally drop their names as qualifiers from Mama and Papa and Da. He's been coming to this place in the Fade for almost as long, practically forever as far as he's concerned. He has a treehouse here, like he can't when he's awake because the darkspawn might find it and use it as a shooting platform.

(When he is an adult, he sometimes wonders about his childhood. To go from being the son of two apostates to living at a Grey Warden outpost, adopted by the Hero of Ferelden and her two husbands—it seems far-fetched. But he is seven now, and the far-fetched is normal, and he only really knows that his new mama and one of his fathers are Grey Wardens.)

"Dunno," he tells Nelacar, who has Dirthamen vallaslin just like his papae did and tells him all sorts of Dalish stories. "Just wondered."

There are a thousand other questions that Rhys covers with a shrug, questions he doesn't even have words for yet. It seems _important_ , that they love each other. Maybe, if things had been different, Rhys's papae would have loved Mama Kathil too.

But for now, they go back to enacting the battle of Jeruthine and the wolves with carved wooden soldiers, cups of water standing in for each supply cache that she has to reach in order to defeat the Templars chasing her. Rhys can almost feel the slap of leaves and branches across his face as they run the wine glass that is Jeruthine through the dark, dark woods.

Rhys laughs, and Nelacar does too. Rhys forgets his question entirely.

* * *

Rhys digs to the bottom of the box, pulling out what seems like an endless array of inkwells, pen nibs, knives for trimming quills, and other detritus from his mother's various obsessions. It's been years since she died, and these boxes still manage to turn up in the house. Rhys quietly took over going through them after he found Papa sitting staring into one of them one day, holding a pair of leather gloves, tears running down his face.

Cerys bounces into the room, plunks down next to him, and throws her arms around his neck. "Hey, big brother. Whatcha got?"

He wriggles so he can poke her in the side. It's good to have her around, and all too rare these days. "One of Mama's boxes," he says. "Looks like writing stuff, mostly."

Cerys sniffs and reaches into the box. "This doesn't look like a pen," she says, pulling something out. She leans against him, a warm weight, her magic lending the air just a tiny scent of scorch. "Actually, what _is_ this?"

He takes it from her. "Hairstick," he says. The top is shaped like the head of a dragon, and the shaft is carved in an intricate design of leaves and vines, lyrium inlaid into the shadows. He remembers it now, she would use it to put up her hair when she thought it was going to get in the way. "What it's doing in her writing things…"

Rhys pauses and frowns, turning the hairstick. The vines make letters, he can see it now. _Vhenan._ Elvish for _heart._

_She is emma vhenan._

"Ker? Do you remember Nelacar?" he asks, turning the hairstick over again. The lyrium glitters, untarnished.

"Mmm. I do." Her hazel eyes are intent on the object in his hand. "Why?"

"I think he made this for her. The lyrium would let her bring it back here with her."

"Oh." Cerys reaches out and strokes a finger down the carved vines. "He was nice to us."

Rhys remembers a smile curving intricate tattoos, details lost to the fog of childhood but there are still those eyes, bright blue just like Rhys's and Wynne's, and nods. "He was." He runs his thumb over the dragon's snout. "I'll put this with her Oath," he says. "Are you going to stay for supper?"

Cerys runs her hand through her hair and grins. "Maker's Balls, _yes_. Revolution is hungry work."

Rhys chuckles and gives her a one-armed hug, then climbs to his feet. "Take the rest," he says to his sister. "I'm sure your leaflet writers would appreciate it."

He makes supper, makes sure Papa eats, puts together a bundle for Wynne who is out helping rebuild the village walls. And after supper, after all is quiet, he opens the small display case in the front room and sets the hairstick next to the battered vial that his mother carried with her from the day she became a Grey Warden until the day before she died.

_She is emma vhenan._

"I remember." Whether he says it to himself or to her, he doesn't really know. "I'll write that down, too."

He closes the case and heads back into the kitchen. He'll work late into the night tonight, he thinks, writing down what he remembers of Nelacar.

He opens his book to a blank page, dips his pen, and begins.


	23. W is for Wynne

Wynne plants her fists on her hips, and scowls at the _thing_ Therik is holding out to her. "It's too far out of tolerance. It'll last two weeks, three tops, and then the pin will fall out and the whole thing will shake itself to bits. Besides, this is supposed to be _contributing_ to the comfort of the ride, not shaking the passengers apart like something a mabari's gotten hold of." Around them, the hubbub of Tapster's swirls, and nobody is paying the slightest attention to the two of them, except for the usual stares. Even now, humans aren't a common sight in Orzammar.

The dwarf she's talking to raises his hand in protest. "The tools—"

"Therik. I gave you _money_ for the tools." She grimaces, remembering the sorry state of the dwarf's workshop the last time she saw it. "What happened to it?"

Therik's eyes dart to the side, and she has her answer. "I…uh…"

"Used it on drink," she snaps. "Fine. We're going back to your workshop, and we're going to fix your tools, and we're going to _sodding_ get this _right_."

The look of alarm on his face would have been comical if she didn't have so much riding on this. It's a dream commission—the Prince of Starkhaven himself asked for a working prototype of her new carriage spring design. And if she doesn't get it _right—_

Therik is staring at her. "What?" she asks. "Afraid to let a _human_ into your workshop?"

He points at the top of her head. "You're. Uh." He waves his hand. "Sparks."

Wynne reins her magic in, extinguishing the sparks. "Never mind that. I shouldn't have trusted anyone else to execute the design. Let's go get this right, Therik. Getting it right will make both of us rich enough that you can be a drunk on the _good_ stuff." She grabs the blacksmith's shoulder and starts walking towards his workshop, dragging him with her. He's still clutching the flawed carriage spring as they walk.

* * *

_Hey, Rhys,_

_Orzammar's really interesting, and Da was right that I think Dagna is just brilliant. She's all about the mage stuff and lyrium and everything, but we've already come up with some new devices together! Of course, they're all improvements on existing designs, but I think we're close to inventing something completely new._

_I've even bullied my fabricator into teaching me some of the dwarven techniques for working metal. He hates me, of course, but I pay him well enough to keep working with me._

_I'll be home in the spring. Kiss Papa for me and make sure you keep your mutt out of my workshop. I still haven't forgiven him for chewing up my logbooks. Tell Cerys that she needs to be careful._

_Love you, big boring brother._

_Wynne_


	24. X is for Xenomorphic

_Xenomorphic: having a form not its own_

When Rhys is very young, he tells people he's going to be a tiger when he grows up.

Shapeshifting isn't among his mother's talents, but during the Blight she'd come into the possession of certain books. And then they go to find his parents' friend, Morrigan. Morrigan is almost as scary as Mama, but she knows a lot of things, a few of which she decides to teach Rhys.

By the time he's ten, he knows how to change into a spider, a hawk, a sparrow, a mabari, and a cat. "Tiger?" Morrigan says, and then laughs that laugh that always means he's asked a stupid question. "I have never even seen a tiger. A catamount, yes, and lynxes, but tigers live far, far north of here. And you cannot learn a new form from _books_." Disdain drips from her voice at the last word.

So he gives up asking Morrigan if she'll teach him to be a tiger, and stops telling people he'll be a tiger when he's grown. He keeps the dream close anyway.

Then they go to Nevarra, when Rhys is fifteen.

Papa and Da have some business with the Pentaghasts; what, Rhys doesn't know exactly. Something to do with the Seekers; with Mama gone, they're no longer hunted, but the Chantry Seekers are an embattled organization, and still dangerous. Whatever it is, it lands them all in a house that's more like a palace in the center of Nevarra City.

And in the middle of the house is a menagerie.

It's an expansive garden filled with cages and enclosures, peacocks strutting and shaking out their magnificent tails between them. The Pentaghast who collects the animals loves birds, and there is a vast aviary curled around the edge of the menagerie. But what draws Rhys's attention is not the collection of small, delicate-hooved deer, or the brightly colored finches. Instead, he is drawn to the cage in the dead center of the garden.

Inside the cage is a tiger.

It paces in its cage, ten paces to, ten paces fro. It's utterly silent, watching all who pass by with relentless golden eyes that remind him of Morrigan's—and her daughter Branwen's.

It is magnificent.

But it's also trapped in a cage far too small for it. He settles on a bench next to the cage, and watches.

To.

Fro.

He watches how the muscles ripple under its fur, how the slitted nostrils flare and narrow with its breath. He's too far away for the sort of study he really needs, but he makes a start of it anyway.

There's a shadow and then a presence next to him. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" his Da says as he settles on the bench next to Rhys. He sounds tired. Both he and Papa sound tired, right now.

"Yeah." Rhys lets out a breath and looks at Da. "The cage is too small for it."

"I think any cage at all would be too small for an animal like that." Da watches the tiger for a moment, then looks at Rhys. "Would you let it out?"

It's one of _those_ questions, the questions he's supposed to think through before he answers. Da's fond of those. "If it was free…it would probably hurt people," Rhys says slowly. "This isn't where it belongs. And eventually someone would probably kill it." The tiger paces. "It's not happy in the cage, but at least it's alive."

"Is there another solution?" Da asks, gently.

Rhys runs his thumb over the amulet that he always wears, a gift from Mama before she died. "If there were somewhere we could take the tiger, where there weren't people. It could be free without hurting anyone."

"That's one solution," Da says. "But what if it weren't practical to separate the tiger and the people like that?"

"Teach everyone to change into tigers. Problem solved." He grins at his Da, who smiles back and chuckles a little. "How much longer are we staying here?"

"A few more days. Evidently they think they can actually get Cassandra herself to come talk to me and your Papa." Da shakes his head. "Hopefully we can get this sorted soon and be on our way. It looks like we might even get a land grant out of this."

 _Land grant_ means _house_ , which means _home_ and an end to the endless traveling they've done as long as Rhys can remember. It's a strange thought. They sit there for a while longer, and then Cerys comes looking for them, frantic about some trouble Wynne has gotten into with her habit of disassembling everything she comes into contact with.

Rhys spends the next five days studying the tiger.

* * *

The guards on the door are twitchy, looking around with nervous stares. Rhys doesn't speak much Nevarran, but he hears the word for _tiger_ and works at keeping a straight face.

"They say they saw two tigers going over the wall," Cerys whispers to him as they walk out of the Pentaghast compound, packs on their backs. "Rhys, what did you _do_?"

He cracks a smile at her, and she starts giggling. Inside of him, the new shape he's learned twitches an ear in its sleep.


	25. Y is for Yours

Rhys is almost eight when he meets Branwen.

It's been a long time since he's made a friend, at least a friend who isn't also his little sister. And Branwen is immediately intriguing, despite being three years older—she's a mage, she's pretty, and she's _curious_. She wants to know everything.

She's also a little strange, and though Rhys isn't fully aware of why, he's sympathetic. Branwen has both her own mother and Rhys's Mama training her in magic, and it seems like she's always working on a lesson. But there are times when she has spare time to play with Rhys, and they go rambling around on the mountain together. They stage glorious battles, go swimming in hidden springs. Sometimes Cerys and Wynne come along, sometimes they don't.

The first summer they're in Tevinter is endless, sun-soaked, _perfect_. He and Branwen whisper secrets to each other. _I have a dragon living inside of me,_ she says. _I think she's part of me._

 _Mama has a dragon inside of her too,_ he tells her. _You can see it in her eyes sometimes._

Branwen nods, eleven years old and perfectly wise, and makes flames dance on her fingertips. _I know._

* * *

"Branwen has a willy," Cerys tells him one day. "Like you and Papa and Da. I saw when we were swimming."

Rhys is tying two green branches together, making an arch for the doorway of their new hideout. "Yeah. So?"

Cerys drops the bundle of sticks she's carrying with a clatter atop the growing pile of brush they're using as building material. "So how come she's not a boy?"

Rhys rolls his eyes. Cerys is still little, she doesn't know _anything_. "Because she's a girl." He ducks into the hideout. "Hey, hand me those sticks."

His little sister collects two careful handfuls of sticks and brings them to him. They work happily for the rest of the afternoon on the hideout, and when Branwen gets done with her lessons she brings Wynne and some food out and they have a secret picnic dinner under the interwoven branches.

* * *

He goes a few years without seeing Branwen, after they leave Tevinter and settle in Nevarra. He misses her, but he doesn't have any way to send a message, much less find her and talk to her.

But then Branwen and her mother show up on their doorstep, one balmy Solis evening. The adults immediately closet themselves, leaving Branwen—who, if anything, is even taller and prettier than she was the last time Rhys saw her—fidgeting out in the garden with the three of them. "Do you know what's going on?" Rhys asks her.

Branwen shakes her head. "Mother wouldn't say. Just that her presence was going to be necessary." She brushes her fingers against a flower, a cheerful daisy nodding in the breeze. "I like your garden."

Rhys goes warm with a flush of pride. The garden is _his_ , has been ever since they built the cottage. "Thanks," he says. "Do you want to see our practice ground?"

She gives him a flash of smile, tilting her head so that a curtain of her dark hair falls over a golden eye. "I do."

They leave Cerys and Wynne in the garden and walk to the practice ground. It's a clearing scorched clean of grass, bare ground and pells. They stand at the edge of it in silence, looking down the ground, a rising breeze coming from the forest.

They reach for each others' hands at the same time.

Through the next few days, as Papa and Da break the news that Da is leaving for his Calling, as Rhys and Cerys and Wynne struggle with goodbyes that are too final to be borne, Rhys and Branwen keep holding onto each other.

And when Da leaves and Morrigan goes with him, to keep him company on that long walk into the dark, they sit, stunned, still holding hands. "She'll come back," Rhys tells Branwen.

"Maybe," Branwen says, and her sharply carved face is pale and worn. "Can I stay? For a while?"

Rhys nods. So Branwen stays as Papa goes silent and still and dark, as Cerys and Wynne quarrel about everything, as they try desperately to somehow live with the hole in all of their lives. "Why did your mother go with Da?" Rhys asks one afternoon in late summer.

Branwen shrugs, sprawled bonelessly on the grass by Rhys's feet. There's bits of grass and leaves in her tangled hair. "Something about making your mother a promise. She wouldn't tell me what promise, or why." She stretches out one leg and touches a bare toe to Rhys's calf. "There's a lot Mother's never told me. Every time I ask her about my father, or the time she spent with the Hero of Ferelden, she just changes the subject."

He tips his head back so the back of his head rests against the tree, the rough bark digging into his scalp. He welcomes the small pain. "Sounds like Mama. She never liked to talk much about that stuff either."

"Too true. I liked your mother." Branwen grins at him, affably. "After a while."

Rhys laughs, the first time he can remember laughing since Da left. "Me too, Branwen. Me, too."

* * *

_I've, um…never…_

_Me, neither. But I want to…_

* * *

She comes and goes, Branwen does.

Rhys doesn't ask where she goes, or what she does when she's there. The part of her that's an ancient god makes demands, and she obeys. The important part is that she comes back.

He has his garden and Papa to take care of. His sisters come and go, but Rhys stays, keeping a candle in the window for them and Branwen. Papa tells him he should go, travel, but Rhys got his fill of traveling as a child. He's put roots down, now.

And he knows that one day he'll look up and there will be Branwen, shadows tangled in her hair and humor glimmering in her amber eyes, and just the hint of wings in the air above her. And she'll smile, and he'll grin, and she'll sit down just as if she'd just stepped out of the room for a moment.

 _When you love a dragon, you have to love its wings too,_ he tells her.

Even if those wings carry her away. Even if they carry her back.


	26. Z is for Zevran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may want to have the tissues handy for this one.

Cerys is in the foothills outside Markham, in a refugee camp-cum-resistance headquarters, when the message reaches her.

_Come home,_ the note says. _Papa's not doing well._ It's not signed; it doesn't have to be. She knows Rhys's writing better than she does her own.

Cerys closes her eyes. Takes a breath. Lets it out.

She's curled up on her bedroll with the man she most often shares it with, his arm draped loosely over her. "I have to go," she says, softly. "Back to Nevarra. Home."

Torben nods, and tightens his arm over her. "The resistance—"

"Will do just fine without me," she snaps, then sighs. "Sorry."

"I was just going to say that," he says gently. Torben's used to her moods and her snappishness, and takes everything she throws at him in stride. It's one of the things she likes best about him. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Cerys folds the note and turns in his arms, curling into him. "Please," she murmurs. "Please."

He kisses her brow. "We can leave in the morning," he says.

She is twenty-four, and she's been a leader of the resistance for eight years. She's lost troops, she's lost friends, she's lost lovers. But to lose Papa, the last of her parents…

If she starts crying now, she won't stop till the border. So she swallows her tears down, dread heavy in her chest.

* * *

They arrive three weeks later at the little house at the edge of the woods. Rhys is outside, weeding the garden, and Wynne is sitting on the wall tinkering with one of her endless contraptions. It's no surprise that she feels them before she sees them; they were raised together, trained together, and their magics know one another probably even better than they do.

Rhys straightens and grins. "Ker! You made it!" Behind that smile is a shadow, felt more than seen, but Cerys puts a bright smile on her own face. "Wynnie was just wondering if you would."

Wynne snorts and hops off the wall. "I hate it when you call me that." She bounces over to Cerys, bright red curls flying, and wraps her up in a hard hug. "Good to see you. Who's this?"

"This is Torben, my…" She trails off. "Friend," she finishes, a little lamely.

Wynne isn't fooled. She winks at Cerys and bounces over to hug Torben, who looks surprised but tentatively hugs her back. "Well, greetings, Torben!" she crows. "Maker's Tits, you're about as big as Da!"

Somewhat to her horror, Cerys feels herself flush. "Now I remember why I don't come home much," she says dryly as she turns to hug Rhys.

Her big brother engulfs her in a hug. "That and you can't run a revolution from a cottage in the middle of nowhere."

"Too true. Where's Branwen?"

"Not here." Rhys shakes his head. "I thought she might be back by now, but no such luck."

Cerys lets out a long sigh. "How is Papa?"

Rhys's blue eyes dim, a shadow passing over them. "Not good," he says quietly. "Wynne thought he was going to go a week ago. I think he was hanging on till you got here. We're doing what we can, but he's in a lot of pain."

"I should go let him know I'm here," she says. "Could you show Torben to wherever we're bunking down?"

Rhys nods and lets her go, stepping back. "This way," he tells Torben. "I'm afraid you two are going to be sleeping in a glorified shed, but we're a little low on space at the moment."

Torben laughs. "If it has a roof that doesn't leak too much, it'll be better than anything I've slept in for the last two years!"

Wynne comes and stands next to Cerys as they watch the two men walk around the corner of the cottage and out of sight. "He seems nice," Wynne says. "Are you all right, Ker? You're skin and bones."

"It's just traveling does that to me, just like Mama," Cerys says. "I'll be fine. I should go in."

Her sister nods and steps back, retreating to the wall again. Cerys takes a breath, steels herself, and heads into the cottage.

* * *

There's a bed in the front room, and a fire built up despite the fact that the day is mild. There's a stool next to the bed. A drooping bouquet of wildflowers in a jar. Bundles of herbs hanging from the low rafters.

Papa is asleep, she thinks at first. But then he stirs, turns his head towards her, and opens his eyes. "Cerys," he says in a voice that retains the smooth accent of his native Antiva. " _Mi tesora."_

For a moment, she can't move. His eyes are sunken, cheeks hollow, his hair brittle and dull. But he smiles, and it's the same smile he's always had, and she crosses the room in a flash to wrap her arms around him, her heart twisting in her chest. "Papa," she says, and her voice cracks.

"Sssh," he says, and winds his arms around her briefly. "Sit, daughter, and tell me of your adventures. It has been some time, no?"

"Three years," she says. "I meant to come back to visit, but…" She lets him go and settles on the stool. "It was one thing after another."

"It always is, is it not?" He smiles again, and his eyes are warm. "Ah, little one. You remind me so much of your mother."

That warms her through, thaws the things frozen inside of her a little. "I brought someone for you to meet," she says. "His name's Torben. He's my…" She pauses, swallows. "My templar. My lover."

Papa's gaze is sharp on her, and then he chuckles, a bit weakly. "Ah, indeed. And that is not the only person you have brought back with you, is it?" He gives her midsection a sharp glance.

She's just gone scarlet, she knows. "I never could hide anything from you, Papa. How did you know?"

"A thousand little things," he says, and closes his eyes. "Ah, I am glad you have come. I hoped to see you once more."

She slides her hand into his, looking at his scarred knuckles, the outlines of his bones clearly visible through parchment-thin flesh. "Are they very sure there's nothing to be done?"

"They are." He doesn't open his eyes, but he tightens his hand on hers slightly. The fire pops and crackles. "I have lived long enough to see all three of you grown, and I fear that a life spent rendering oneself immune to poisons has a consequence or three. I will be sad to leave, little one, but I am looking forward to seeing your mother and Da once more."

_Don't cry,_ Cerys tells herself. _Don't cry, don't cry—_

But the tears don't listen.

She ends up with her face against Papa's shoulder, sobbing, Papa's hand stroking her hair just like he used to when she was little and she would wake from nightmares.

When she stops crying, Papa tugs gently on a lock of her hair. "I am proud of you," he murmurs. "So very proud, my daughter."

They talk for a while, Cerys's throat and eyes aching, until Papa falls asleep mid-sentence. She slips out of the house, joins her siblings and Torben in the garden.

The perfume of late spring is heavy on the air. They silently pass a bottle of honey brandy between them, as the sun goes down and bats flutter, shrilling almost inaudibly, across the darkening sky.

* * *

"Papa?"

"Yes, _mi tesora_?"

"When did you know that you loved Mama and Da?"

He lifts a hand to touch her cheek, and smiles, just a little. "Ah, little one, now that is a story…"

* * *

Papa slips away in the middle of the night two days later.

_Typical,_ Cerys thinks, swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. _Just like you, Papa, to make a clean getaway._ She and Wynne have done what's necessary for the body. Rhys and Torben are out digging a grave.

Wynne leans against the edge of the kitchen table, dark circles under her eyes. "It's not fair," she whispers. "I can fix _anything_ why couldn't I fix him? Why couldn't I fix the one thing that was _important_?"

Cerys pulls her sister into her arms, and Wynne buries her face in Cerys's shoulder and sobs. They sink down to the floor together, clear morning light streaming in through the window. Cerys holds onto Wynne, her own eyes dry and aching with tears she can't shed, not yet. Something inside of her is broken.

She sets her cheek against Wynne's flame-red hair. _I miss you already, Papa._

* * *

Word gets out, somehow.

Over the next few weeks, visitors straggle in. Mama's cousin Etain arrives, and always next to him is the shadow of his husband Anders, dead these five years. Aunt Leliana and Aunt Amity come to visit as well. A woman named Isabela arrives and immediately gets into a fistfight with Etain, but ten minutes after Rhys and Cerys pull them off of each other they're passing a bottle of wine between them like old friends, which Cerys surmises that they are.

Uncle Jowan comes, and brings a small contingent of Fereldan Grey Wardens with him. He just shrugs when Cerys asks why they came. "Your father was a hero of the Blight," he says, glancing over at the Wardens he brought with him. "We honor his memory."

Cerys wakes up one morning and on her way to the outhouse spies Rhys and Branwen in the garden, wrapped up in each other's arms. She watches them for a moment, feeling something inside of her unwind. If Branwen is here, Rhys will be all right.

And then, one evening, Cerys takes a walk out to Papa's grave. She's got a bottle of unfermented cider in one hand—wine bothers her stomach now—and in her pocket is a little key. One last gift from Papa. She has no idea what it opens.

She settles down next to the grave, contemplates the grass shoots that are poking through the turned earth. "Your friend Isabela cheats at cards," she tells him. "I like her. I wish you were here to play one more hand of Wicked Grace. One more day. Maybe one more year."

There aren't words for how much she misses him, how much she misses Da and Mama. She bends her head, breathing out.

When she raises it, she is no longer alone.

The woman on the other side of the grave is whip-thin, face lined with years of sun and wind, hair grey-streaked. Cerys hasn't seen her since Da left for his Calling. "Morrigan," Cerys says. She hesitates. "Branwen is at the house."

"I know." Morrigan's eyes are hooded, but clear. "She is not who I came to see." She rounds Papa's grave with a smooth step, producing a small wooden box from her bag. "This is for you. I believe you have the key."

Cerys frowns, but accepts the box. "What is it?"

"Something your mother wished you to have." Morrigan's voice is filled with studied carelessness. "After King Alistair vanished, it and the promise that he made her were forgotten. I have retrieved it for you."

"Thank you," Cerys says, for lack of anything else to say.

Morrigan steps back. She glances at Papa's grave, and her mouth twists. "The world is a poorer place without Zevran in it," she says. "I am sorry."

Then she's gone. A raven beats its wings against the air and flies away.

Cerys digs the key out of her pocket and fits it into the lock on the box. It's full of letters and papers, and on top is a folded piece of parchment with _For Cerys_ written on it in her mother's spiky, crabbed writing.

She unfolds the letter, and begins to read.

When she can't read any more because tears are blurring her vision, she sets the letter aside and puts her head down on her knees, shaking with sobs.

After a while Rhys is there, in his silver-striped cat form, pressing into her side and offering silent comfort. She rests her hand on his back. "Rhys." Her voice cracks. "I have something to tell you."

* * *

She's lying nose to nose with Torben, in the dark of the shed they've occupied since they arrived. After Papa died, there was enough room for them to stay in the house, but there's more privacy out here.

"We should go back soon," she tells him. "I think it's time."

"We can stay as long as you need," Torben says, and kisses her nose. "Let's not hurry off."

She breathes in. Breathes out. _What do you mean you haven't told him yet,_ Rhys's voice echoes in her mind. _Ker, you have to tell him. He needs to know._

"Torben…there's something…" She swallows. "What I mean to say is that I'm pregnant."

She feels him freeze, feels his breath stop and his arms tighten around her. "Is it…"

"Yours," she whispers. "I haven't been with anyone else in over a year."

It takes him a long moment to relax again. She shifts in his arms and he pulls her close. "I would marry you," he says, his lips against her hair. "If I thought you'd let me."

Cerys thinks about this, thinks about this man, her templar, who has been her rock for years. Who's seen the worst she has to dish out. Who loves her anyway.

Who she loves.

"I might," she says, and her voice hitches. "You've met my crazy family, and you'd still…"

Torben chuckles. "Yes," he tells her. "Yes. A thousand times, _yes_."

Cerys raises her head, finds his lips with her own. "We can talk about it in the morning," she murmurs. Then she kisses him, and for a long time they forget about anything else but each other.

* * *

They have an impromptu ceremony in the garden the next afternoon.

After the words are spoken and Cerys has kissed Torben most thoroughly, they turn to the onlookers—her family, _their_ family—and raise their clasped hands to the sun.

_This family,_ she thinks. _These extraordinary people._

They lift her up to the light. She holds Torben's hand, and shines.


End file.
